


Recompense for a Debt Owed

by hiddencait



Category: Black Ships - Jo Graham
Genre: F/M, M/M, Misses Clause Challenge, Multi, m/m/f
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:02:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation between Pythia and her queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recompense for a Debt Owed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/gifts).



> So this went a little off script - some of the requested characters are mentioned, but don't take center stage. Shadowcat mentioned hoping that the trio of Gull, Neas, and Xandros could be together, and that Lavinia, Neas's wife could understand and support the relationship without thinking it meaned he loved her any less. This was what my brain came up with out of nowhere - honestly this scene has been one of the easiest fics for me to write in quite some time. Both Lavinia and Gull jumped straight into my head for this. That said, Shadowcat, I hope you don't mind that the men don't make an onscreen appearance - they are still present in the world of the story itself!
> 
> Finally thanks to Sourpony for the betaluv!

“I sent him to you both.” The voice behind me was soft, but still one I recognized without more than a moment of thought. I hadn’t realized anyone still remained after the council meeting, especially not the woman in question. A queen often had many duties to carry her quickly away from such meetings. Yet, sure enough, I turned to find Lavinia, Neas’s wife and my queen these past three years. I didn’t have to ask who she referred to. There was only one “him” that we both found in our beds, she and I. And, of course, Xandros and I.

            I had wondered what finally convinced Neas to open his arms and finally embrace the love Xandros and I had long carried for our king. Over the years I had come to truly believe he would never admit to that connection of affection, loyalty, and unspoken desire that tied the three of us together. But then, a bare month past, Xandros had woken me near to midnight to tell me we had a guest. I’d laid our young son on a pallet in the room next to ours and then gone to follow my love. I found him waiting with Neas just outside the door for me, for _us._

            Neas stayed the night that night, and had since returned to spend others of his nights beside us, loving deeply and then sleeping soundly as a man can only when he knows he is completely safe among his companions. It had not been every night, however, and I had known the others he remained beside his wife and queen. I had not known she had known where else he slept, or more, had directed him there.

            Even now, with her facing me and admitting to her interference and direction of her husband to another bed, I did not doubt that Lavinia loved Aeneas dearly. There were few among any of our People who found it hard to love him as a leader, if not perhaps, as a beloved. Part of me deep in the pit of my stomach ached to wish her ill – after all she had married the man I had loved for so much longer than she.

            But that would be foolish, and more would make me quite the hypocrite.

            For of course, it was Xandros and not I who had loved our Neas longest of all. I did not begrudge my Xandros the affection he had finally gained from his long-loved lord. How could I when I loved Xandros, himself, so very much? That would be cruel of me, and thus it was cruel and foolish to begrudge Neas’s love of his queen. I remembered the girl I met that day years ago, clearly terrified, but still standing tall and proud at her father’s side. Marrying a foreign barbarian had taken strength many brave men might lack. Loving that barbarian would be even braver. And of course, I remembered I had been impressed by her courage then, and even so, I was impressed by it now. This was not a challenge as such, this approach of her husband’s lover. It was merely a declaration of support, and so was somehow all the more startling. Lavinia had been a quiet queen thus far through her reign. She tended to the needs of the woman and children of her people, but rarely spoke out in council or sought successions from her foreign husband. I wondered how long she had debated with herself before sending Neas to us.

            How long honestly didn’t matter, not now that she had acted. I didn’t need to know how long; I simply needed to be grateful. Still, though, I was, as I always am, curious. There was only one question left to ask of her.

            “Why? Why would you give him to us like this?”

            She smiled, and I was struck again by the quiet strength within my queen. “He is mine by marriage. This is true. But he has long belonged to the People, to those who followed him here. It was only because of their strength that he came to me, to be my husband and king, at all.” She moved to the window of the council chamber, looking down on the bustling courtyard and streets of the village below. “I cannot thank them all, cannot ever repay them for their loyalty to him as they deserve. My father promised them a home and families, but I am the one who remains to receive their protection and precious support for years to come.” She smiled again, studying her subjects below. “No. I cannot repay them all. But I can repay those he holds most dear, those who were his greatest strength on his long journey. He did not tell me of his need for you and for Xandros. But I feel he did not need to say it aloud. Every story of the journey, every mention of your wise counsel, or Xandros’s solid stance at his back and at his side. Each told me clearly of his regard for you, and of the love you both keep close to your hearts for him, as well.”

            “But still… Why like this? He has rewarded us both for the roles we played at his side. There was no need for you to seek to repay either of us. My queen, there is no debt between us.”

            “No need, perhaps. But I still felt it a worthy gift. Not just to you and Xandros, but to Aeneas.” She stroked her stomach softly, and for the first time, I noticed how it began to swell with new life. Neas would have another child, just as we had all known would come to pass. _A son_ , my Lady whispered in my ears.

            “He has given you a son,” I said, suddenly understanding that gift was more precious to her than the one she had given to us all.

            “Yes. A son who will grow to be a man I can be proud of. A beloved son, instead of the unwanted child of rape from some monster who sought to pillage my home. Who might have taken others of the women of my village, as well.” She straightened again, anger at those men clear. “Instead, I will have the child of my heart, borne to a husband I love. One I even like and respect.”

            “That is a gift.” I wondered, as I rarely allowed myself to do, who I might have been had I been born a free child of the People to a mother and a father, safe, and whole, and happy in that far away city.

            What might have been was not for me to know.

            It was enough to know what lay cradled within my reach now: not one, but two bright men who loved me dearly, a son who I adored, and a queen I realized I could grow to love and respect, as well.

            “That is a gift, indeed.”


End file.
